I suppose it's a good thing in a way. May be bad for someone only just scraping by and only able to make the minimum payment. And it is now more difficult to declare bankruptcy in the States.

This is definitely a good thing, because the way it was before a person paying a so-called minimum on a maxed out CC they would take decades to pay it off with the bank being the only one benefiting. Now a real minimum payment is established where one can pay it off I think within eight or ten years.

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"just because you're a genius doesn't make you a smart guy"

I figured it out once. It was something like 89 years to pay off 5000$ at 21%.

The banks aren't the only ones benefitting, the borrower is benefitting from the funds or goods bought with those funds.

I'm curious as to your distinction between a "so called minimum" and a higher "real minimum" repayment. In either case this is a contractual obligation. If you do not like the contract don't agree to it, if the lender wants to change contractual conditions then change lender or repay the money.

It will present a burden to those folks on limited incomes who found the old minimum hard to meet. But, those folks paying just the minimum would probably die with the credit card debt still hanging.

What I've seen so far, companies have increased the minimum payment by 1% of the balance, or the monthly interest plus 1% of the balance. Either way, it's being setup so paying the new minimum will reduce your debt by 1% each month (assuming you don't charge anything else), which means the debt will be retired in 100 months.

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Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov

Assuming the cardholder doesn't just keep charging more stuff and getting back up to the maximum...

If I remember right, you are correct.
And the change is required by the new bankruptcy law.

Does anyone know of any fee structure changes that this allows? For instance, are there any new rules regarding late payment fees, or time frames?
A few months ago, I paid a few days late (the entire balance ~$200) and was whopped with a $25 fee. This never happened before that I can remember (within a "grace period" ).

Bottom line? the CC companies will get you one way or another.

This increased minimum is long overdue. Among other things, folks who are getting burried in credit card debt will realize this sooner. Perhaps it would have better to have the new higher minimum only on cards that have new purchase activity on or after 1/1/06. That way folks who are simply trying to pay off what they have won't be hurt too badly. I remember 15 years ago when I nearly lost my house during the recession of 1990-1992. If there had been an increase in the minumum payments at that time, it would have been very painful for me. The other side of the argument is that the more you force people to pay, the less interest they pay, so those who are most inconvenienced by the change are the ones who most benefit in the long run.

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True is the question
Derived from the Shakespeare Postulate (2b)|| !(2b)

Did you complain to the company? Often, if you have a good payment history and were paying in full, they will waive the late fee.

(It's not that credit card companies are so compassionate. They make money when you use their card; if they tick you off and you stop using it, they lose. This can also be used to negotiate a better interest rate.)

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Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov

Normally; I would at least make an attempt, but at the time, there were far more important matters that I was taking care of.
(it's always somethin' )

I used to take credit card applications over the phone--a truly horrible job. One of the cards I took applications for was designed to rebuild credit, which meant (given how high-risk a card it was for the company) it had some pretty steep fees. I had a woman call in and say that she had (I think) 15 cards, and why did I think she had bad credit?

I really think that, if people knew how to properly manage the credit they had, they wouldn't have the problem. There's this image in this country (I can't speak for others) that credit cards are free money. I know quite a lot of people who feel that way, and I've taken even more card applications from people who do. People buy more than they can afford and then wonder why they're in debt over their heads . . . .

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Well, if they can't understand "Slower Traffic Keep Right" I don't see how they could understand a sophisticated concept like <spend more than you earn> ==> <go into debt>

Hmm, you must work for a bank.

Someone just scraping by is much better off not using a credit card in the first place.

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And the "driving on the freeway on a scooter" analogy still holds true because the pilots are sitting in 7 to 30 ton aircraft o' doom and you are running around them in your very own Meatbody, Mark I. Beep, beep.
Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

"Neither a borrower nor a lender be."

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Nice mark-up:
"...The Fed has been raising interest rates steadily since June 2004, pushing the federal funds rate---the rate banks charge each other on overnight loans---to 4.25 percent from 1 percent..."

Nope, private client lawyer. People talk about debt as if it just happens without them doing anything. All actions have consequences, in the case of borrowing on credit cards the consequences are spelt out in the terms and conditions they sign when they receive the card and credit limit. (I'm sure this is universal practice in developed countries.) Not checking those and hoping for the best is no different from any other willfully uninformed choice.